Looking for a Hero Read Online Free PDF Page B

weird about calling in the first place and who actually turns up if you have a date.’
    ‘And what if we fail?’ I asked.
    Leela grinned. ‘Aha. So a flicker of interest then, eh?’
    ‘Oh, let’s go for it,’ said Brook. ‘It will be a laugh. And I’ve already got a few contenders in mind.’
    ‘Who?’ I asked.
    ‘A boy who lives on our street. Liam Wiseman. Doesn’t go to our school. And Mark Mitchell from the Sixth Form.’
    Leela nodded. ‘Yeah. Mark’s nice but you can only have one.’
    ‘So there are rules now are there, Miss Bossy Boots?’ asked Zahrah.
    ‘Not really but he wouldn’t be a proper boyfriend if you were seeing someone else, would he?’ Leela replied.
    ‘I guess,’ said Zahrah.
    ‘What about you, Leela?’ I asked. ‘Got anyone in mind?’
    Leela looked coy but was saved from replying as the bell for the end of break shrilled behind us, and pupils began to swarm up and down the corridors heading for their next class. Ours was double English and we were having a treat. We were doing Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet as part of our coursework and our teacher Mr Pacey had arranged for us to see the film version of the play directed by Baz Luhrmann and starring Leonardo Di Caprio.
    ‘It’s soooo romantic,’ sighed Brook when the movie got to the part where Romeo gatecrashes Juliet’s family party and they see each other for the first time and zing ping go their heartstrings.
    ‘It is at first,’ whispered Zahrah. ‘And then . . .’ She acted out someone having their throat cut.
    ‘Shhh at the back,’ said Mr Pacey.
    As I sat and watched the star-crossed lovers go through their series of mix-ups and miscommunications on the screen, part of my mind started to drift away. There’s no getting away from it, I thought. Love is a tragedy and I am a tragic heroine. I started imagining a series of paintings I could do for my art project. Mr Bailey, our teacher, had asked us to paint a series of self-portraits and I thought it would be good to do some like the Pre-Raphaelite painters who were big on tragic heroines. Millais, Burne-Jones, Rossetti – they had all painted beautiful women with a distant look of sadness in their eyes, as if they had been let down big time by love. One of the most famous was of Ophelia. Millais’s painting shows her lying in the river covered in flowers after she drowned because Hamlet had driven her mental. Is that how I’m going to end up? I wondered. Floating in the Thames with a poetry book in my hand, flowers in my hair and a tattoo with Joe’s name engraved on my arm so everyone can see who has done me wrong. I could see the painting in my mind’s eye. People would come from far and wide, look at it, feel sadness and ask, Who was that poor girl? I sat back in my chair, assumed a tragic heroine’s pose (wistful expression that hints of sorrows untold, a slight weariness around the shoulders and limp wrists) and watched the film. I felt a bond with all the women through the ages who had been let down by love. Zahrah passed along some mints at one point and I wondered if she had noticed my pose, but she didn’t comment. Clearly it was lost on her.
    As the film continued, I found myself starting to get cross. Romeo was acting like a total love rat, in love with some girl called Rosaline at the beginning of the play and then changing his mind in a flash as soon as he meets Juliet. What happened to Rosaline? I thought. That’s what I’d Iike to know. Poor girl. Romeo is clearly nothing more than another stupid boy with a phobia about commitment who can’t make up his mind who or what he wants. Like Joe. I started wondering why I am attracted to boys like Joe who make me feel uncomfortable or don’t want to commit. Love is a funny thing, I thought. Then I remembered that I wasn’t in love with Joe any more. And then I felt even crosser. With him and myself. Blimey. No wonder those tragic heroines look so miserable, I thought. Love is rubbish.
    I